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T Minus 4 Weeks

I've completed a substantial load of 0L prep - read all the E and E's for my 1st semester courses, the Acing Series, Flash Cards, Practice Exam Hypos LEEWS, Law Preview, Delaney, etc. Most would say doing this is a bad idea, others will say it'll be helpful. Either way, doing this before law school even starts has helped me to learn more about myself. Anyone else doing 0L before law school starts in August?

I've completed a substantial load of 0L prep - read all the E and E's for my 1st semester courses, the Acing Series, Flash Cards, Practice Exam Hypos LEEWS, Law Preview, Delaney, etc. Most would say doing this is a bad idea, others will say it'll be helpful. Either way, doing this before law school even starts has helped me to learn more about myself. Anyone else doing 0L before law school starts in August?

Anybody who says this isn't helpful is really off the mark. You'll find that pretty much every class you completed the E&E for, you'll know 80-90% of the material on day one. Good work.

Will your prep be helpful? Sure, assuming you can remember it, or assuming you made outlines you can use.

But the next question is now what? You'll learn thousands of pages worth of nonsense in your classes and you'll have a lot of hours throughout the semester to prep. Are you going to brief all of the dissents for every supreme court in alphabetical order?

I think people mistakenly say that 0L prep isn't worthwhile, but what they mean is that it isn't really necessary. If you are diligent from day one of law school, you have plenty of time to learn what you need to learn to do well. If your 0L prep gives you more free time to spend with your family and on your hobbies, then fantastic.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Jack24. I'm 4 years out of school, so I'm hoping 0L will help me to get back into student mode as well.

Would you please elaborate on why you think learning Erie Doctrine now would be a waste of time? I learned the overall gist Erie, jurisdiction, discovery, etc thinking that it will provide a foundation to work from.

I would appreciate your insight on why I might be wrong. You speak from experience, I'm a total noob.

Jack offers some good advice and I have gone through the process myself, but remember anything on here comes from anonymous internet posters and what worked for Jack or for me may not work for you.

When you start the first two or three weeks 100% of people will be convinced they will be in the top 10% and what they are doing or what they did will give them the edge. All 100% of people will think that and obviously only 10% can be in the top 10%.

Learning the Erie Doctrine can't hurt, but it might not necessarily help plenty of people "KNOW THE LAW" , but every professor will explain IRAC and the "analysis" you will hear that 10,000 more times over three years. All you will have is that 3 hours on an exam to show what took months of study. Many students run out of time, get nervous, or a variety of things happen.

As Jack suggested improving your typing speed is a huge advantage I can personally type extremely fast and I performed extremely well in law school and much of that had to do with me never running out of town at least IMHO.

To be be perfectly honest I finished near the top of my class and it took my until second semester to figure out a "system" that really worked for me. You will see every student making flashcards, writing giant outlines, taking pictures, highlighting every page, all kinds of different techniques and no specific one is full proof.

The point of that is your current studying OL studying may help you. If your the type of person that would freak out if they had cram some material in then it is better to get an early start. On the reverse you may burn out and be so sick of the law by the time the final comes around you can't take it. You may also overstudy and begin over thinking everything and as I stated there is "RIGHT WAY" to do any of this.

I don't think you can really understand first year until you go through it. That is what everyone told me and it obviously was not comforting I wanted to know, but you can't know until you go through it. I personally found it really exciting and I hope you do as well. GOOD LUCK!

Here's a silly question... how many actual case excerpts have you read? Reading the E&E's and having the black letter law spoonfed to you doesn't compare with actually reading the cases and understanding the reason why a law developed a certain way. One of the things that I felt gave me a leg up, at least initially, was knowing how to brief a case... pulling the procedural and substantive facts from the brief, identifying the issue, identifying the holding, etc... and later when it came to final exams, besides reciting the black letter law, the ability to compare and contrast the fact pattern with the actual assigned cases can score you the crucial easy extra points.

It's a skill that everyone develops quickly in law school, but knowing what I was doing right out of the gate made me feel more comfortable adapting to the learning process of law school.

Thanks for your input, Robwreck. I have read a handful of important cases (Palsgraf, VW v Woodson, Int'l Shoe, etc) and I completely agree with you that really reading the cases gives you a deeper understanding of the material. I'm going to work on my case briefing skills more before 1L starts to shorten the learning curve.

I think what you did is very smart! It's a great start to your law school career. I compare what you did to watching the movie before reading the book. If you watch the movie first, when the book gets kind of confusing, you'll get through it better than most since you kind of suspect what is going on. Also, sometimes the professor isn't very clear when lecturing and if they convolute things, most people may not understand the lecture, but you may just have enough background knowledge to get through it. SO.....you'll get through your readings faster, get more out of them and get more out of class! Good job! Like everyone else said, law school is a different experience for everyone, but I have tutored law school students for 15 years and a MUCH higher percentage of students would do better if they used their free time before law school started! Once school starts, you're on a timer and have a certain amount of weeks to learn. BEFORE the term starts, you have so much more free time. Good luck!